Ohio's legislative map a partisan mess

Unfortunately, the good news - predictions our state won't be besieged by political commercials for the midterm elections - isn't really important and means our state's political system remains quite broken.

The bad news - the reality that Ohio's legislative districts are tilted so heavily in favor of Republicans or Democrats - means winners of any May primaries for Congress and most state House and Senate districts will coast to election in November. They won't need TV commercials and many races are expected to be uncontested. In 2012, 16 Ohio Statehouse races featured just one candidate.

Before that same election, we reluctantly agreed with Republicans campaigning against a proposed Ohio constitutional amendment requiring a new bipartisan process for Congressional and state redistricting after the 2020 census. The process was a bit too convoluted, and Republicans promised they would pass a new law. Now, time is running out on that promise.

Those same Republicans - much like Democrats in the past and in other states recently - redrew Ohio's districts in 2011 in ways that essentially assured they would win 12 of Ohio's 16 U.S. House seats through the 2020 election. It would take a major demographic shift or scandal for Republicans to lose seats, and Democrats probably can't lose their four seats if they tried very hard to do so. The closest Democratic win was by 42 percent last year.

The districts are so poorly drawn that Ohio supported President Barack Obama's re-election by a thin margin, yet elected 59 mostly ultra-conservative Republicans to the Ohio House, creating a strong majority that even Republican Gov. John Kasich struggles to persuade. Democratic House candidates earned more total votes than Republicans yet won 40 of 99 seats.

In short, the people's house doesn't reflect its people.

That's not the way our democracy should function.

Even worse, it's one of the fundamental reasons Congress has become so dysfunctional and a key factor in the recent government shutdown.

Gerrymandering in other states - many are insanely worse than Ohio - leaves incumbents mostly worried about appeasing primary voters, who tend to be either highly conservative or liberal. Our moderate majority silently sits on the sidelines until November when legislative elections are decided before any votes are cast.

It's time to fix our system before we get any closer to the 2018 elections, which will decide who sits on the state's Apportionment Board.

We call on Ohio Republicans to keep their promises and show they can govern, not continue a power grab that could come back to haunt them.